Wednesday’s unexpectedly straightforward defeat of Mourinho United sets us up nicely for our trip to Anfield on Sunday afternoon. Chelsea’s defeat means that the peleton chasing Citeh has squashed up for the moment, in fifth we lie five points behind second and three behind third, a position held by our hosts at the weekend with Chelski currently the spam in the sandwich.
Liverpool’s better than most record during the last couple of seasons against the so called top six is based mostly on their home form and their tried and trusted method of running around a lot and working really, really, really hard at great pace for the whole game. It works! The front seven or eight players press and chase like a bunch of hyped up puppies assuming that the likes of Salah, Mane and Firmino are able to take full advantage of any mistakes, which they generally do.
It’s not an easy style to counter but if you can and ‘get beyond the press’ then as West Brom and Swansea have recently proven, they are vulnerable. Personally I think there’s mileage in us shaking things up a tad to try and cope with it. Maybe switch to a longer ball out of the back policy, keep Son on the bench and let Llorente and Kane do what they can to ease the pressure on the back line until the last twenty minutes or so when we bring on the South Korean and Lucas Moura to give Karius and van Dijk unwanted flashbacks. If we try and go toe-to-toe from the off we’re just asking for a repeat of last year’s debacle.
That’s my view anyway, luckily, we’ve got a man in charge who knows a lot more about it than I do.
I think it’s far from unlikely that we’ll get a result of some sort, as we know from Wednesday an early goal can set an unexpected tone. The bookies have us at 23/10 and Liverpool at Evens which suggests that they think it a far more certain home win than I do, it also shows what a tough task we have on our hands.
Alderweireld, Aurier and Winks are all still injured.
With Harry and Eriksen in good form and with the extra speed from the bench, who knows?
Jonathan Moss is the referee.
COYS
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